Payback nomination

Published: Friday, January 7, 2005 at 6:01 a.m.

Last Modified: Thursday, January 6, 2005 at 11:00 p.m.

The recent nomination of Bernard Kerick to be homeland security chief was definitely a payback for Rudi Giuliani for his help in the 2004 election to get his buddy Kerick a good job.

This guy had enough baggage that a dozen porters could not carry it.

First, dubious dealings with arms manufacturers that do business with homeland security; secondly, hiring an illegal alien, which he would be trying to stop; thirdly and most important, remember, he was the police commissioner when the U.S. was attacked, and it was his responsibility for security.

If memory serves me, the people in charge at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 - Gen. Short and Adm. Kimmell - were court martialed, not rewarded with a big political job.

The administration was asleep at the wheel on this one. The doubts that this brings to light is "what else are they asleep on?" It is by far the most serious product to arise out of this fiasco.

Recently I saw a docudrama on HBO titled "A Path To War."

The movie chronicles an intimate view of the Johnson administration from a few military advisors in Vietnam to a half-million troops on the ground.

One particularly disturbing aspect of the movie was when the Cabinet, especially Defense Secretary McNamara, was trying to put a positive spin to LBJ and the public when in essence the situation was falling apart around them.

We were failing in Vietnam and they continued for years to sacrifice our young men and women for a losing cause.

With the bloody insurgency and the very likely massacre during the elections because of lack of enough troops and horrible planning in Iraq, failure here should come as no surprise.

Hours after viewing this movie, it continued to return to my mind and I did not know why.

Finally, with tour extensions and the increase in troop strength for our soldiers in Iraq it finally occurred to me why.

All I have to do to make this movie current is change the country to Iraq and the president to George W. Bush.

<p>The recent nomination of Bernard Kerick to be homeland security chief was definitely a payback for Rudi Giuliani for his help in the 2004 election to get his buddy Kerick a good job.</p><!-- Nothing to do. The paragraph has already been output --><p>This guy had enough baggage that a dozen porters could not carry it.</p><p>First, dubious dealings with arms manufacturers that do business with homeland security; secondly, hiring an illegal alien, which he would be trying to stop; thirdly and most important, remember, he was the police commissioner when the U.S. was attacked, and it was his responsibility for security.</p><p>If memory serves me, the people in charge at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 - Gen. Short and Adm. Kimmell - were court martialed, not rewarded with a big political job.</p><p>The administration was asleep at the wheel on this one. The doubts that this brings to light is "what else are they asleep on?" It is by far the most serious product to arise out of this fiasco.</p><p>Recently I saw a docudrama on HBO titled "A Path To War."</p><p>The movie chronicles an intimate view of the Johnson administration from a few military advisors in Vietnam to a half-million troops on the ground.</p><p>One particularly disturbing aspect of the movie was when the Cabinet, especially Defense Secretary McNamara, was trying to put a positive spin to LBJ and the public when in essence the situation was falling apart around them.</p><p>We were failing in Vietnam and they continued for years to sacrifice our young men and women for a losing cause.</p><p>With the bloody insurgency and the very likely massacre during the elections because of lack of enough troops and horrible planning in Iraq, failure here should come as no surprise.</p><p>Hours after viewing this movie, it continued to return to my mind and I did not know why.</p><p>Finally, with tour extensions and the increase in troop strength for our soldiers in Iraq it finally occurred to me why.</p><p>All I have to do to make this movie current is change the country to Iraq and the president to George W. Bush.</p><p>James Pickard</p><p>Gadsden</p>